Unpacking picks up Game of the Year at the Australian Game Developer Awards 2021

The Interactive Games & Entertainment Association (IGEA) held the 2021 Australian Game Developer Awards (AGDAs) tonight as part of Melbourne International Games Week (MIGW).

Overall, Victorian and Queensland studios took home the biggest awards, with Queensland studio Witch Beam picking up the Game of the Year award for the upcoming zen-puzzler, Unpacking.

The show was a tone of fun to watch live with hosts Amanda and Angharad Yeo delivering laughs with my personal high being a song for the Excellence in Audio category that was riffing on Bo Burnham’s Netflix special, Inside.

Check out the complete list of winners below and this article where I’d previously outlined where you could play each of the nominees for this year AGDA’s.

• The Adam Lancman Award: Steve Wang (Wargaming Sydney)
• The Raising the Bar Award: Chad Toprak (Freeplay Independent Games Festival)
• The Rising Star Award: Kathleen Smart (Joy Everafter Stories) & Ashley Van Wyngaard (Wargaming Sydney)
• Studio of the Year: Black Lab Games
• Game of the Year: Unpacking (Witch Beam)
• Excellence in Art: The Artful Escape (Beethoven & Dinosaur)
• Excellence in Gameplay: Webbed (Sbug Games)
• Excellence in Narrative: The Forgotten City (Modern Storyteller)
• Excellence in Audio: The Artful Escape (Beethoven & Dinosaur)
• Excellence in Accessibility: Unpacking (Witch Beam)
• Excellence in Mobile Games: The Oregon Trail (Gameloft Brisbane)
• Excellence in Serious Games: Sharmila (Chaos Theory Games and the World Food Programme)
• Excellence in Ongoing Games: Pico Tanks (Panda Arcade)
• Excellence in Emerging Games: Video World (Things for Humans)

Watch the AGDA’s in full below and let me know in the comments section what you think of this years winners.